Letters: Congress at the health care controls

2009-12-24 12:49:55

President Barack Obama promised us initially that he would not sign a health care bill that was not "deficit neutral" or would add "one dime" to our debt. He's now saying that there will be "savings" in the new health care bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office projections. And, as usual, he is confidently, and forcefully, lying.

Both of the House and Senate bills were originally scored by the CBO to add billions of dollars to our costs. The CBO was summoned to the White House. They are a nonpartisan professional group that cannot be told to "change" their numbers. However, they can be told to score the bill with a new set of "facts."

The CBO works with the parameters given it. They do not decide on the validity of the information provided, only how it would impact the costs. Apparently they were told to assume "facts" written in the new health care bill including:

•A half trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare. When have you ever seen the federal government cut any entitlement program?

•Payments to doctors in Medicare would be cut by about 21 percent in the first year, and would not increase in the next 10 years. The extra money Congress votes to doctors every year, more than $200 billion, was set aside by this Democratic Congress into a separate bill and taken out of the mix to pass this bill.

•There are also huge tax increases.

The CBO had no choice but to score the bill in a positive light given the new parameters provided to it. This isn't a broken campaign promise, a misreading of the facts, an honest mistake, an unforeseen event. This is a calculated and deliberate lie to the American public by the president.

Chicago politics has come to Washington, D.C., for the "imperfect" storm of corruption, bribery, coercion and lies.

Bob Elliott

Anaheim Hills

A political Twilight Zone

Dec. 24, 2009, is a day that will live in infamy. The myth that the United States is a limited constitutional republic governed by popular sovereignty was finally debunked. Its death had been rumored for many years. The adage that we "need to contact our representatives and let our voices be heard" has been officially laid to rest. "We the people" means absolutely nothing to the elite now in charge.

Despite the fact that several popular opinion polls indicated massive disapproval of a government overhaul of the health care system, less than 300 members of the House and Senate have shoved a bill down the throats of more than 300 million people.

Few who vote have read or will read the entire bill. The significance of this reveals that Americans are no longer in charge of their own destiny and any who still believe that fable are living in the Twilight Zone of history.

Our destiny has passed into the hands of dedicated globalists and socialists who purchased a majority of the House and the Senate. Their hero is a man whose hazy history is one of supporting tyrannical causes and not liberty.

The congressmen and senators who disregarded the will of their constituents have made it quite clear that they are nothing more than the political equivalents of prostitutes.

Ironically, it was just a few days ago that the Register ran a quotation from Thomas Jefferson: "When the government fears the people there is liberty; when the people fear the government there is tyranny."

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Steve Benke

La Mirada

Hijacked by ideologues

If I were a Democrat, or even a moderate, I would be ashamed. It is your supposed deliberative body that has been hijacked by a bunch of ideologues who have made backroom deals and bought votes with a slush fund of your money and mine. In the dark of night, it is your Senate forcing unwanted legislation through that has never been examined, published or even written in violation of the rules they themselves set.

Those grand promises of openness and compromise are a lie exposed, and this is what you have voted for. These are the people you want to run your lives. Nowhere is there a sense of outrage in your media, nowhere is there any sense of shame at this shredding of freedom.

Fred Wilferth

Yorba Linda

We get what we deserve?

Recently I heard a quote from President Barack Obama that really upset me. He said, "We now have health care that the American public deserves." He didn't say "this is the health care that America wants," because they don't want it.

I wonder if cap and trade, Cash for Clunkers, "cash for caulkers," the stimulus package, climate change, emissions control, bank takeovers, the General Motors takeover, Internet regulations and salary and bonus regulations are what we also "deserve" even though we don't want them?

Dale Hovinga

Orange

A partisan pork project

In response to Ben Nelson, D- Neb., selling his "yes" vote to make 60 votes for Obamacare, the president said this, "Let's bring this long and vigorous debate to an end."

There was no debate. A debate takes two sides to tango. This has been a behind-closed-doors, in-the-dark, shove-it-down-our-throats, one-sided robbery of our rights to decide our own fate when it comes to health care.

There could have been just a few things done to fix health care, and make it more available; namely being able to purchase it nationwide, controlling malpractice amounts and cleaning up the fraud in Medicare and Medi-Cal.

Instead, health care reform has been turned into a partisan pork project, aimed at controlling the economy and a sixth of the gross domestic product by another government take-over. Nothing is scarier than having a politician decide who is getting taken care of, and who isn't. It forces us to pay more for our own, so that we can pay for others. The end result will be more debt and less quality care. They wouldn't even make certain that only legal citizens would participate. That's how much respect they have for Americans, and how desperate they are for votes and your hard-earned money.

Pat Reiot

La Mirada

An army of bureaucrats

When I hear the wide range of cost estimates for the Democratic health bill, the guesses are based on medical costs and range from budget-neutral to budget-busting. What's omitted is the army of bureaucrats who will administer it.

A Web check quickly shows Wal-Mart to have the world's most employees, followed by the Chinese army, Indian rail system, while the National Health System of tiny Great Britain is the world's sixth-largest employer, with 1.3 million workers.

How many unionized government pen pushers will it take to control the health care of our large population?

Doug Mears

Tustin

Midnight robbers

I have found most criminals prefer to commit their crimes in the dead of night. Now what time was it that the Senate voted on the health care bill? Could it be they are more comfortable working at night than during the day?

James Leonard

Placentia

Use your vote in 2010

I want to remind all taxpayers that when your taxes go up next year and your existing health care premiums rise significantly because of this bill, remember, and vote them all out of office before 2013 so we can turn this massive deficit-busting train wreck around.

Daniel Thurber

Buena Park

Obama broke his public-option promise

To our elected officials:

I would like to buy in and sign up for the same health insurance you are offered as an elected official in the House, Senate or White House. This is fair and equitable. Anything less than a public option does not allow our country to grow with positive steps but be bound to the dictates of profit and loss; that's not health care, it's a perverse, twisted form of bondage where for-profit companies make profits on the sick.

In this "health care bill," the for-profit companies will have a greater latitude to discount very sick citizens and reward the partially sick with greater premiums.

You can take the health care industry's money and then do a disservice to the American citizens, but then on Election Day, you can join the hundreds of millions on the unemployment line.

I suggest you all get this right because no one likes the unemployment line.

Dennis McHale

Silverado

Obstructionists lose big

Republicans act as if the Democrats invented a new way to get bills passed, by bribing politicians with pork. This is the way bills have been passed for many years. Remember the "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska? The problem is this time from the start Republicans said, "We're not voting for any change to health care, no matter what."

So when it was obvious that Republicans were just going to obstruct the bill, and there was no way to get their vote, Democrats stopped negotiating with them and didn't offer them earmarks or any pork.

Now some Republicans have to go home to their states and explain to their campaign contributors, "I didn't get anything for you."

Campaign contributors don't care which label the politicians wear (Democrat or Republican) they just care about the beneficial legislation the politician can get for their corporation.

Andy Harris

Fountain Valley

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